AMERICAN VIEWPOINT

Taranaki Daily News, 8 July 1930, Page 7

AMERICAN VIEWPOINT

EDITOR’S TOUR OF BRITAIN, Tho entertainment of Messrs. Clark Howell, Stuart H. Perry and R. P. Scripps, the American editors holding fellowships awarded by the British newspapers in memory, of Walter Hines Page, ended after their two weeks’ intensive survey of England and Scotland. The final function was a luncheon given by the English-Speaking Union. Mr. Howell assured their hosts that the. London naval treaty is bound to be ratified by the United States Senate, despite the American element .which, is obsessed with the idea of a, big navy. “There are some people in the United States,” said Mr. Howell, “who want ships, ships, ships. If they could, they’d build so many ships they’d have to put them on the Great Lakes for lack of room in the oceans. But these people are not going to prevail." Mr. Scripps, of the United Press, intimated it might aid an even better understanding between England and the United States if there were a freer exchange of information. He deplored the existence of a Press censorship in India in the present crisis. He cited the difficulties of his own correspondent in Bombay in getting adequate news dispatches past the censor. Lord Burnham, a member of the Eng-lish-Speaking Union and of the Indian Commission, who presided at the luncheon, accepted Mr. Scripp’s challenge and said the censorship was absolutely necessary to prevent disturbances which might result in a serious loss of life. “The Government of India,” said Lord Burnham, “must treat the Indian Press the same as the correspondents of the papers' of other countries; and as restrictions on what may safely be published in India are necessary, the same restrictions have to be applied to outgoing dispatches. Without such a regulation the matter would get into the vernacular newspapers of the country, ami that would be a most harmful incitement to violence. The primary purpose of the censorship, therefore, is to save lives.”